


Chromatic Abstraction

by varlovian



Series: Cold Fire [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Antagonism, Body Modification, Can be considered purely Gen or Pre-R76, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Colors, Dissociation, Emotions, Fist Fights, Frenemies, Gen, M/M, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Murder, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Snarky Reaper, Synesthesia, Unintentional Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 13:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9074734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varlovian/pseuds/varlovian
Summary: Death comes with unintended side-effects. Reaper thought his ended with the need to consume human soul energy, but he was wrong. Seeing other's emotions isn't as alarming as the change to his diet, but it sure is illuminating.OR: Four people Reaper could read like an open book, and the one he couldn’t.{ Playlist | Art }





	

**Author's Note:**

> Chromatic Abstraction was written as part of the 2016 Overwatch Big Bang project and has been paired with incredible art by _Chordbot_. Thank you for bringing this story to life. Please help support the artist by liking and reblogging their work on [tumblr](http://chordbot.tumblr.com/post/155019576306/chromatic-abstraction-death-comes-with-unintended/)!  
>   
>  • CW: As a stylistic choice, this story contains elements of dissociation on Reaper's part. Please see end notes for details, as it contains minor spoilers. This story also contains mild body horror/modification, morally-grey Reaper and murder. All fall under the bracket of canon-typical, but I thought I'd err on the side of caution and warn for them just in case.  
>   
> • This was written as a gen-fic, but can be viewed as pre-slash of the R76 persuasion if you’re so inclined; it’s all blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stuff, so don’t fret if it isn’t your cup of tea. I just have a thing for sad ol' dads.

  
{ art by [chordbot](http://chordbot.tumblr.com/) }

 

> _Other synesthetic musicians don't see colors as much as they perceive 'auras' of them. "It's a feeling of being enveloped in it, kind of like walking into a room where the walls and ceiling are all painted the same color," Margitza explains._
> 
> —FROM: "Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music" by Chris Force

> _"And I feel I'm going under,_  
>  _'Cause my heart is bleeding colors_  
>  _Only for you_  
>  _Only for you..."_
> 
> —FROM: "Quantum Immortality" by Crywolf

## i.

His life can be divided neatly into two boxes— _before_ and _after_ the explosion.

More accurately, his death and subsequent resurrection, though he shies away from using those terms. For all intents and purposes, Blackwatch Commander Reyes never made it out of the explosion alive. He died there, in the ruins of the organisation he’d bled for, and something else rose in his place.

Something darker and meaner.

A reaper, if you will.

Reyes was a hard man, but as Reaper he’s harder still. He’d had something to live for back then. Now, he has nothing but himself, these powers and his anger, which lingers in the air around him, writhing like a thing alive in a cloud of deep, blood red.

It feels like he’s balancing on a knife’s edge, sharp and gleaming; no matter which way he falls it’ll be to his death. There’s no way out but to take the plunge, and he doesn’t want to die. Not like this.

He just doesn’t know what he’s _looking for_ , not in that anger-red, or the smoke that billows out of his lungs as his cells decay and regenerate as quickly and easily as blinking.

Widowmaker’s apathy barely registers in any discernible form, so it isn’t until they’re face to face with the enemy—a new task force rising from the ashes of Overwatch—that he starts to realize exactly how different his life _after_ truly is.

That it isn’t just his perception of himself that has changed, but the way he perceives others as well.

Since the recall of agents, the number of people on Winston’s task force has doubled—if not tripled—in size. He counts at least fifteen people fighting in their ranks against Talon, dispatching their agents left and right, and, alarmingly, _winning._

There’s no time for him to observe his opponents in the haze of battle. He’s too busy conjuring his shotguns, opening fire on Tracer as she flits back and forth in his field of vision and—is that _Jesse McCree_? He grits his teeth behind the mask and aims for the cowboy’s back, only to be assailed by Genji’s shuriken as the younger Shimada covers his teammate’s retreat.

The only thing he registers as different is the sudden onset of color in the room, how it’s fit to burst with it, exploding out from every crevice, suspended like a fog above them all.

Nobody is spared, not even him; his rage cascades in a flood of dark, gaping red, an open wound in the air, until without warning, the butt of a pulse rifle hits him square in the temple and he’s staggering to the floor, losing consciousness and then—

Reaper shudders awake in a cell, stripped of his armor and the mask. To say he reacts badly is an understatement. He dissolves immediately into smoke, only to find he is unable to step past the confines of the room, even as a shadow. Exploration of the filtration systems and air vents above bear the same result. He doesn’t know how they’ve done it, but he’s trapped.

With no escape and nothing else to do until they deem it necessary to check up on him, he coalesces once more, taking the time to render, in perfect remembered detail, his former self. He uses the two-way mirror to track his accuracy as he paints the scarred and weathered face of Reyes into existence. It’s a slow and draining process, but once it’s done it’s absolute.

That is, until he runs out of energy for his cells to burn and his skin starts to decay. Mercy must have hit him with the good stuff, though, because he can hardly feel the beating he took in the fight. His head twinges at the temple—fuck you very much, Jack—but that’s about it.

It’s Angela they submit to him first. She’d look the very picture of health if it weren’t for the dark smudges beneath her eyes and the exhaustion that hangs like a noose around her shoulders, sickly yellow in hue. She speaks to him but he isn’t listening, too rapt in the display, especially when the yellow darkens with filaments of orange-red, burning like cinders at the heart of it.

He leans back to observe the phenomenon. He’s never seen anything like it before. His eyes dart to the play of emotions on the surface of her porcelain features and he realizes that the two correspond—the displeasure tugging at the edges of her mouth and the malaise of orange-red all around her.

“You’re annoyed,” he says, the first words he’s spoken since they captured him.

Without the voice modulator—and with fully-formed vocal chords—he sounds every bit the old Blackwatch Commander. It shows in the surprise on Angela’s face, which ripples like a shockwave through the array of colors, echoing off her short, sharp gasp of breath. She didn’t expect him to sound so normal, even though he looks it.

(They both know what he really looks like, after all, and it isn’t this.)

“—and surprised,” he adds, eyes fixed on the color that hangs between them. Studying it. “By how… normal I am. Or can be. But it’s all a ruse, isn’t it? I’m not normal at all—I’m not even human. This _thing_ that you made of me, doctor.” He looks at her. “Why did you do it?”

“Gabriel,” Angela says, chagrined.

He smirks. “Not anymore, doc.”

“ _Please._ I need to—”

“NO!” he yells, face contorting with rage, and leaps to his feet.

Angela’s reaction is immediate, like it always is. She sheds the good doctor’s persona as easily as he sheds physical form, snapping into the war angel—into _Mercy_ —in an instant.

He’s stopped in place by her pistol, leveled between his eyes. Her entire body is tense, like a bowstring pulled taut. Her eyes blaze and the colors around her warp spectacularly. Reaper grins wider than should be possible, skin rippling around the corners of his mouth, because this— _this_ is the Angela he remembers. The woman that raised him from the dead.

The Frankenstein to his monster.

“You don’t _need_ to do anything,” he says, lowly. “Except come clean. Tell them what you did to me, _Mercy,_ then we’ll talk.” He cocks his head, smiling. “I may even tell you something in return.”

His words call her bluff. She lowers the gun, the air around her souring to an off-green, thick like tar. He can’t quite ascribe an emotion to it—guilt, perhaps, or shame?—but it’s absolutely captivating.

She leaves soon after. He’s almost sad to see her go when the color leeches out of the room with her, leaving him with nothing but the acrid grey of his own discontent.

No matter. He’ll have more visitors soon enough. There’s a laundry list of people he’s pissed off over the years, people looking for a slice of revenge. Most of them are here, in this base. There’ll be enough time to observe the phenomenon then, during their interrogation of him.

He relaxes back against the wall and grins into the two-way mirror. It’s still that too-wide smile, stretching the muscles in Reyes’ face, pulling them farther than they should go. It trips the uncanny valley, even for him. He turns his focus inwards, spurring on his cells, forcing them to realign skin and sinew into a moderate facsimile of his old smile, rarely glimpsed but for a snarl.

He bares his teeth at the mirror, noting the distinct lack of color in the reflection. It hangs around him like a thick, wool scarf in the periphery of his vision, equal parts interest and revulsion. He hates what he has become—what _they_ made of him—but he’s intrigued by it all the same.

He always did have a fascination for dead things.

## ii.

After Mercy, he expects them to send someone equally as likely to elicit a response from him.

He doesn’t expect this.

“Tío,” Fareeha says by way of greeting, taking a seat on the chair in his cell. Reaper sits cross-legged on the bed and stares at her.

She isn’t the lanky teenager he remembers, but a woman now, sitting ram-rod straight and stoic. The only indication that the girl he once knew is still alive in her is the way she addressed him— _uncle_ , though he’s sure there’s an insult in there somewhere _—_ and the cool purple of her emotion, curious and calculating, stemming from her shoulders like a bird of prey, equal part soft feathers and razor-sharp talons, mirrored in her eyes as she watches him, hawk-like.

“Fareeha,” he says in return and smiles, baring teeth. “How is your mother?”

It’s a low blow and he knows it. They both do. Fareeha doesn’t outwardly react to the statement, but the purple deepens into something sickly, curdling. He can’t quite place what it is yet, needs more data to form a conclusion, but she isn’t surprised by his words, that’s for sure.

“I’m to pass on her regards,” comes her clipped reply. “She told me she ran into you at Giza.” Her gaze turns considering, but the colors ripple with silent threat. “How _did_ that go for you, I wonder?”

Something stirs within him at the barb, something a lot like pride. They haven’t seen each other in at least a decade, perhaps longer, and yet he can still see the shape of himself in her. Ana never spoke of Fareeha’s father, so he and Jack stepped up to the mantle, leaving a piece of themselves alive in her in a time both simpler and infinitely more complicated than anything he could imagine now.

(And he eats souls for a living. Go figure.)

His eyes snap back to hers, where she’s taking in his every move. He watches her idly in return. She’s every bit the soldier her mother never wanted her to be. More like Ana than is comfortable.

More like him and Jack, too.

He grins at her, shark-like. “Did you miss me?”

“I did once,” Fareeha says simply, her face a blank mask.

“Then?”

“Then I grew up,” she says. She shrugs awkwardly, like she expects the motion to be a lot harder than what it is. Used to her armor, he figures. He’s used to his too. “And I learned who the real heroes are. The people I’ve fought with and lost; they are the ones I miss now. As for you…” she shakes her head. “I cannot miss what is not there. You no longer know yourself, tío, and you are not the man you were.”

“That we can agree on,” he replies smoothly. He’s not unaffected by her words, but he’s a brilliant liar. “So why are you here, if not to talk to a ghost?”

Her face twists with exasperation; it bounces through her colors like a pinball, dizzyingly fast. He’d almost forgotten, in the heat of her words, what he should be paying attention to. He wonders if that’s why she’s here, to throw him off.

(If that’s the case, they should have brought Jack instead. For better or worse, Reaper is still drawn to him like a moth to flame—too blind-sighted by his own anger to realize his wings are burning.)

“I’m here because you owe me a debt,” Fareeha says, her colors growing crisp and apple-green at the edges, cunning, “and I’m ready to collect.”

-

They circle each other warily—Reaper on one side of the rink, Fareeha on the other.

She’s stripped down to a sleeveless black top and gunmetal pants, falling into perfect form the moment her bare feet hit the sparring mat. She expels vigilance with every breath, impossibly sharp, like the curved blade of a scimitar. The amber of her emotion dissipates as soon as it is formed, reacting to his every movement, down to the most minute of twitches.

For his part, Reaper watches not her but the play of color around her, having decided that this is as much a test of his newfound abilities as it is Fareeha’s.

The decision to participate was of no contest to him, his only other option being to return to his four-by-four, which he’s looking to put off for as long as possible. He’s just as unable to shadow-step here as he is in his cell—whatever energy field lines the room appears to extend to the rest of the base—but that doesn’t stop him from re-acclimatizing to the layout of the Gibraltar base, the knowledge of which will come in handy when he stages his escape.

He grins at the thought.

To Fareeha, he says: “Don’t go easy, little hawk.”

“I do not intend to,” Fareeha shoots back, her eyes darkening.

She rises to the bait, closing the distance between them in an instant. He dances out of the way as she charges, using her momentum against her as he digs in his heels and lashes out.

His fists sink into the hard, corded muscle of her stomach with considerable force, knocking the breath from her lungs. The coil of carmine-red that alights in the sharp hooks of her emotions confirms his suspicions—the area is still tender from a previous fight. Fareeha grunts but takes the hit, allowing it to cascade through her, displaying no hint of the pain she’s in apart from the involuntary display of color and texture around her that only he can see.

She recovers quickly, using their proximity to retaliate with a flurry of blows. He parries the first punch and side-steps the second, but the third hits him square in the jaw, sends him reeling backwards.

Fareeha watches him carefully, eyes tracking the way he pulls away, licks the blood from his teeth and shakes his head to dispel the wave of dizziness that crests over him. He waits until the tense line of her shoulders starts to droop before he throws himself bodily back into the fray, using her instant of hesitation to dart forward and lock them into close combat.

His world narrows to the next jab, kick, bob and weave. At some point, news of their fight circulates and they attract an audience. Reaper pays the bystanders little mind, choosing instead to focus on Fareeha, who breathes hard but shows no sign of stopping. Her fortitude has the color and consistency of thistle, all prickly stem and bulbous, purple head. Her exhaustion clings to it like rust, a slow and tedious disintegration of her will; it will get her eventually, but not fast enough for his liking.

So he uses what he has learned to his advantage, aiming every second blow to the existing bruises around her ribs and stomach, watching the corrosion spread until it all but encapsulates the flower of her determination, upon which the fight is over.

Fareeha falls to her hands and knees, _hard_. She raises a hand in surrender as he approaches, all but gasping into the mat, flakes of rust taking to the air as her body shakes with exertion.

As she regains herself, however, the decomposition ceases, warping into something else entirely, too quick to track. He can understand her confusion—for most of the fight, they were locked in a stalemate. How did he gain the upper hand? What tricks does he have up his sleeve?

 _And,_ her eyes say, _how can I learn them?_

He’s distracted for a moment by the audience stirring at the edges of his vision, with each their own maelstrom. It’s enough to cause a sharp pain to ricochet through his eyes and into his head. He turns his back to them, returning the full weight of his consideration to Fareeha, whose singular emotions are nowhere near as difficult to decipher. Each heaving breath adds a splash of teal to the brush-strokes of her bemusement, tangible in the space between them.

Unhesitatingly, he offers her a hand up. She takes it, groaning as he lifts her to her feet. Her pain makes itself evident in the masterwork of her emotion, pinpricks of red at the heart of the off-blue. It’s garish and uncomfortable and he soaks it up anyway, because it’s honest.

“A few things you have yet to learn,” he says, with no small amount of amusement.

Fareeha laughs. “A few? I haven’t had my ass handed to me like that since Basic.”

She lets go of his hand but hangs close in his space, exhaustion overriding her better judgement. She’s offered a bottle of water by someone in the sidelines, which she gulps down readily.

As soon as she’s regained a modicum of composure, she stands on her own. The air swells with her needle-like willpower, all strong lines and deep, amethystine hue.

She looks him in the eye and says, “Again.”

## iii.

“You know,” drawls a voice by his door the next day. “If you’re spoiling for a fight, I’d happily lay a few punches on that messed up face of yours.”

Reaper looks up from the book he’s reading—a bonafide, paperback book, like something out of an old movie; the gimmick’s enough to have his full attention, the book itself is bland—and smirks.

“McCree, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

McCree enters the room with easy confidence, a bolstering royal blue with a texture like wool that wraps around him like a serape. He’s dressed simply, in a flannel shirt and jeans, that infernal hat taking pride of place atop his scruffy-haired head. Despite the stiffness in his posture and the clench of his jaw, he looks good. Better than good, actually.

“I woke up this morning and figured I’d come over here to get some closure,” he says, and his tightly-knit emotions begin to unravel at the seams, threadbare.

He fixes Reaper with a hard-eyed gaze.

“You’re one sick son of a bitch, Reyes,” he snaps, and there are scorch marks at the edges of his emotions now, charcoal grey and spreading—his fury tastes like ash in Reaper’s mouth. “When Geneva happened, I never expected _you_ to be behind it; I thought you’d take on Morrison one-on-one, settle that old score directly, not blow a bunch’a innocent people sky high. _What the fuck is wrong with you?_ ”

McCree’s colors are a veritable lightshow as the deep blue burns into a raging inferno, spanning his shoulders all the way down to the vice-grip of his metal arm, digging into the wall nearest him. Reaper watches the hydraulics shift in fluid motion to the smog that takes to the air, thickening in the space between them. He isn’t sure if it’s a mind-trick or some kind of acceleration to his condition, but it becomes harder to breathe as the thick smoke spreads to encompass the entire room.

“Haven’t you heard,” he says to McCree, and snickers, “there’s everything wrong with me.”

McCree levels him with a look of pure disgust, and the smoke in the room takes on a sickly, toxic hue. A hard knot settles in Reaper’s chest, one that would be guilt had he anything to be guilty for.

“Credit where credit’s due, however, and let me tell you,” he says, leaning in as if imparting a secret, “I didn’t bring any explosives to that fight. I hate to say it, but neither did Jack. We stood off in the control room. One of us—I don’t remember who, could’ve been me—fired a round that hit the main power generator. It went into critical before either of us could react. _That’s_ what blew the base up. Maybe it was me, but maybe it was the boy-scout.” He shrugs. “Either way—”

“It was an accident,” McCree finishes, something akin to awe in his voice. His thick eyebrows furrow, looking at Reaper as if he’s seeing him for the first time.

And he can’t have that now, can he? So he grins and says, “I was going to say collateral.”

McCree’s in his face in an instant, hand fisting the collar of Reaper’s shirt, lifting him slightly. He snarls, “You don’t speak ill of the dead in front of me, Reyes. I don’t care _what_ you are now.”

He lets Reaper go, stepping back. As he does so, something in the movement catches and a flicker of pain lances through the sharp discontent of McCree’s colors, like blood in shark-infested waters.

 _Favoring his left leg,_ Reaper notes. He nods down to it. “What happened?”

McCree snorts. “Like you care.”

He waves a hand. “Humor me.”

“If you must know, it was courtesy of your new ‘buddies’ at Talon,” says McCree, scowling.

The knot in his chest constricts with the thought that maybe this time, he does have something to be guilty for. Reaper brushes it aside as soon as the thought occurs. _Sentiment is weakness._

“I taught you better than that,” he says, dryly.

“It’s different now,” McCree says, his shoulders hunched. “It ain’t just me I’m looking out for. Got a girl here who just turned nineteen.”

Reaper points out. “So what? You were only seventeen when you joined.”

“Yeah, but she ain’t no criminal,” he argues. “Nor some dumb hick kid looking for a score. She’s doing her country proud while folks twice her age sit on their asses back home. I know she can look after herself, but something in me just won’t quit worryin’.” He looks up then, expression indecipherable. “Is that what it was like for you, all those years back?”

He’s tempted to lie, but something stops him before the words can come out. There’s something in the color that surrounds McCree, the earthy browns and thick, verdant greens that convey an edge of desperation, worry and despair. Whatever this is, it’s important to him.

The knot tightens.

This time, he can’t just push it away. He remembers the brat’s wide smile, stupid antics and even stupider get-up and realizes that something in him—despite all these years, betrayal and pain— _cares._

It surprises him so much so that he answers a hoarse, “Yeah, it was,” before he knows what he’s doing.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Reaper all but forcing himself to look Jesse in the eye. Then, McCree turns and walks to the door.

He looks back, appears to make a decision in that split second, and raps sharply against the smooth metal of the door. It slides open with a barely audible _swish_ and he steps out of sight, leaving Reaper to his own devices once again. He picks up his book, settles in for the long haul. Except…

Except the door isn’t closing, and there’s McCree sticking his head back through the frame, impatient.

“Ass up, old man,” he orders.

Reaper croaks. “ _What_?”

McCree rolls his eyes, acting for all the world like it’s incredibly obvious and he’s just slow on the uptake. The wool-like confidence in rich, deep blues is back around his neck—a stalwart companion. It suits him, just like the casual clothes suit him. Reaper isn’t a hundred percent sold on the hat or the cowboy get-up, but then, he never was.

“Thought you might like to get out of this cell a bit, shake off these white walls,” McCree explains. His eyes glitter with humor. “Don’t make me regret the offer, now. Get!”

His legs stand of their own accord, tailing McCree out of the cell and into the hall beyond.

The younger man grins at him. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” Reaper bites back, but the barb holds no real weight.

“Y’know,” McCree says as they walk. “I might’ve been wrong about Geneva, but you’re still a bally fool—I wasn’t kidding about wanting to fight you.”

“I’d be disappointed if you were.”

McCree’s grin is sharp. “Yeah, well, next time you wanna go a few rounds, you just call me.”

Several minutes later, when they reach the central atrium, McCree withdraws a pair of thick, metal cuffs from his pocket and motions to Reaper to raise his arms. He complies, noting the way Jesse secures the cuffs to his wrists one after the other, and the background hum of electricity that trickles up the back of his spine as soon as they are both in place. If he were to hazard a guess, he’d say they are a portable version of the energy field surrounding his cell and the base proper. The hum, though different, has the same resonance.

“We’re going outside?” Reaper asks.

McCree nods.

“Gettin’ a little pasty in that cell, figured some sunshine’d do you good,” he jokes as he opens the door.

Fresh air billows in through the gap, brushing against his face and hair. It feels good—better than good, actually. McCree ushers him out onto the bridge that spans Gibraltar’s satellite towers, securing the door behind them before stalking out confidently over the breach.

They’re high above the ground, too high for Reaper to fall and survive without the ability to transform. He stares at the hard-packed dirt below for a long moment before shaking his head—dispelling the urge to try it anyway, just to see what they’d do—and following McCree across the bridge, to the rampart overlooking the cliffs.

The air smells like salt and sea, swelling pleasantly in his lungs. Reaper watches the opalescent white of his own calm tremble in the wind, intermingling with the contentment that surges from McCree in metallic grey, like the polished barrel of his favorite pistol or the steel in his spurs. It has the consistency of gunpowder, which Reaper finds fitting.

He wonders idly what that emotion would look like on him, and if he’ll ever feel it again.

They don’t speak, the silence transforming from something vaguely uncomfortable to something smoother, like a mutual understanding of sorts, neither man willing to disturb the semblance of peace that surrounds them, however precarious it might be.

It feels like forever and yet no time at all when the sun begins its slow decent towards the horizon, stealing the last vestiges of light from the sky. McCree turns and walks to the bridge without a word.

It’s with no small amount of reluctance that Reaper pulls himself away from the sight, following McCree back inside the base, where he releases him from the cuffs as soon as the door swings closed behind them. This behavior doesn’t surprise him in the least—McCree never liked restraints.

It isn’t until they reach his cell that McCree breaks the silence.

“Tell you what,” he says, wrapped in the tawny tones of cleverness and thought. “You give us somethin’ on your buddies—nothing that’ll get you into too much trouble, just information we can verify—and I’ll let you run loose a bit longer next time. Think about it.”

He tips his hat, knocks once on the cell door and then he’s gone.

## iv.

Reaper thrums with energy as they clap the cuffs around his wrists in preparation for transfer. He tests his grip within the tight circle, studying it. He’s long since abandoned all hope of reversing what’s been done to him, but the design is intriguing nonetheless. The localized energy field seems to form a bond between the nanites in his system, loose enough that he can still accentuate his appearance—like he did in his cell—but tight enough to prevent escape.

The agents escort him from his cell and into the hall where McCree waits for him, hat in hand. When he sees Reaper approach, he lets out a low whistle. The lush golds of his emotions glitter triumphantly.

“Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour. Ready to make good on our deal?”

Reaper sighs. “Don’t make me regret this.”

McCree grins at him, showing teeth. He relieves the agents on either side of Reaper and starts for the elevator at the end of the hall, the only way in and out of lock-up.

“Where are we going?” Reaper asks when they reach the elevator, eyeing the press of McCree’s fingers against the control pad. The red border around the panel turns green and the elevator shudders to life, creeping up the shaft.

 _Some kind of biometrics scanner,_ he thinks to himself. _That’s new._

“To the Stretch,” McCree answers, eyeing him significantly. “Amari wants a word with you.”

The shimmering gold of his triumph dulls at the edges, heavy with anticipation.

For the first time, Reaper echoes the sentiment.

-

The first thing Reaper notices about Ana when she comes into view is that she keeps her emotions close to her chest—both figuratively and literally.

Her caution is a tightly-bound hijab over her hair and shoulders, clinging to her like a second skin as deep and dark as the starless night sky. Shrewd eyes track his every move as he steps out of the elevator and into the waiting room, drinking in the familiar lines of Reyes’ face and the solidity of his frame—comparing it, perhaps, to how he went up in smoke right in front of her, his post-battle face a gnarled mess of sputum and sinew—before falling to the dampening cuffs circling his wrists.

“Take those off,” she orders, nodding to the cuffs. “He won’t be needing them here.”

McCree steps forward and, without a word of complaint, unlatches the cuffs. He hands them to Ana.

“Thank you, Jesse.”

He inclines his head. “Ma’am.”

“Shimada asked for you earlier,” Ana says casually.

McCree’s head snaps up sharply, the look on his face stricken, like a boy caught red-handed at the scene of a petty crime. Ana’s lips curl at the confirmation, humor coating the edges of her restraint in a dusting of rose-pink, fine like powder.

“Go,” she says. “I’ll take it from here.”

McCree darts away with nary a nod to Reaper.

“What was that about?” he asks.

But Ana just smiles at the place he once stood and shakes her head. Then she steps back, forcing the automatic doors to open.

“Come.”

Reaper follows her through the waiting room and into the base’s Satellite Tracking and Earth Terminal Communications Hub, known to Overwatch members both new and old as ‘the Stretch’.

Doubling as both a ground station and a telecommunications network, the Stretch allows Overwatch to send to and receive transmissions from satellites and geocentric orbital networks, maintaining a constant flow of information between points. It keeps the organisation updated on major global events, streaming footage in real-time to ensure the safety of its agents.

It had been established early into Jack’s stint as Strike Commander, Ana coming on-board as his 2IC months later, effectively closing the loop between them and then-Blackwatch Commander Reyes.

He remembers being upset at the time, anger so thick he nearly choked on it. Now, as he arrives in the subterranean room filled with television-sized holographic screens, Reaper feels nothing at all.

His head cranes to look up at the main viewing screen, which depicts primary targets the world over. It reminds him of the old Mission Control at NASA.

“We received information this morning that our people are having difficulty deciphering,” Ana says, caution swathing her in darkness. “Jesse inferred to me that you were able—and willing—to help us.”

“Correct,” Reaper says.

“Follow me,” Ana says, leading them to a small office containing a metal table, two chairs and a holo-screen. The room looks outfitted for interrogation and it sets Reaper on edge instantly.

“What is this?” he asks, with a note of anger.

Ana sighs.

“Necessary,” she replies, and clicks a button on the wall. The door slams shut behind her, sealing them both inside. To Reaper’s look, she adds, “I know it’s hard to believe, but this isn’t about you, Gabriel.”

“You’re right. It _is_ hard to believe,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What we’re about to discuss is need-to-know,” Ana says simply. She motions to the room outside, bustling with activity. “You and I need to know. Everyone else out there? Doesn’t.”

Reaper takes a seat on the metal chair furthest into the room, nothing but the thick, concrete wall at his back. He’s willing to play ball, but he doesn’t trust these people. Not even her.

Relief breaks the otherwise flawless blanket of her emotions, silver-gold strands suffusing the black. She falls gracefully into the free chair and leans forward, thumbing the corner of the holo-screen to switch it on. Once loaded, she opens an uplink from one of the smaller screens outside.

“I need you to identify the buildings in these photos—their functions, relative dimensions and floor plans, if possible,” she tells him. “Any information you can spare.”

“Why?” Reaper asks, unable to help himself. Something about this exchange is rubbing Ana the wrong way, and as someone who relishes in the idea, he has a vested interest in finding out what. “What’s so special about these images, these… buildings?”

Ana smirks. “So you recognize them.”

Reaper rolls his eyes and leans back to rest his legs on the table, crossed at the ankle. “I’d be a poor mercenary if I didn’t. And do you know what happens to poor mercenaries? They get dead. Fast.”

Annoyance ripples at the heart of the gossamer swirls around her, an orange-red glow in the darkness. Before she can speak, however, he points to a cluster of small buildings on the right side of the image.

“See those outhouses there?” She nods. “Not outhouses, but experimental weapons storage. Each one of those buildings leads to an eight-by-eight underground. They’re like shipping containers, really. Full of all the nasty stuff we fight you with.”

Ana’s head snaps up, alarm blazing yellow pinpricks in the malaise of orange and red. From where he’s sat, it looks like candlelight dancing at her breast, the flame growing stronger the more concerned she gets—and she’s concerned, Reaper would bet his guns on that.

“Talon has experimental weaponry stolen from _the UN_?” Ana asks, reeling.

“Stolen?” Reaper repeats. He laughs. “Oh, please. They practically let us in.”

Ana’s fingernails scrape against the surface of the table with a dull screech, the metal unyielding to her touch. He watches her with open fascination as she forcibly reigns in her emotions, extinguishing the white-hot flames of her shock. Concern remains at the edges, a stammer of light in the cautious dark.

“And on the left?”

“The L-shaped building is the administration block, containing all the records of what’s in lock-up. It’s all pen-and-paper prehistoric bullshit. Sombra was pissed. Took us hours to find the right codes,” he murmurs. “The main building contains anything lifted by the feds during the investigation of Overwatch that wasn’t classified as top-secret or dangerous. Three floors. Huge, like a library. It contains the stuff there is only really valuable in context, or to the right people. Unfinished experiments, data-points, equipment produced en-masse, that sort of thing.

“Now,” Reaper says, moving his legs off the table and leaning forward in one fell swoop. “I’ve answered all your questions, time for you to answer one of mine. Why’d you come back?”

The concern flares, front and center, in Ana’s chest. There’s something there, something she isn’t telling him, and it’s connected to whatever game they’re playing.

“Fareeha,” Ana concedes. “I came back for my daughter, when I realized that staying away wasn’t going to save her from the harm that befalls heroes in this world. Here, by her side, I can stop at least one bullet meant for her.” She looks at him, dark eyes burning like molten steel. “And I came back for Jack.”

“Jack. Always Jack,” he utters, testing the weight of his name on his tongue. “Jack-fucking-Morrison.”

“Despite what you might think, he didn’t come out of the battle unscathed, Gabriel,” Ana chides.

Reaper growls. “That isn’t my name, _Ana._ ”

Sadness softens the lines of her weathered face.

“It is to me,” she says.

A call comes through on the holo-screen before he can formulate a reply. Ana picks it up immediately.

On the screen, taking pride of place, is an increasingly agitated Soldier: 76.

 _Speak of the devil and he doth appear,_ he thinks wryly.

From the corner of his eye, Reaper sees Ana’s hackles rise, a ripple of alarm through her closely-kept emotions. “76,” she says curtly. “What is it?”

A sharp burst of static crosses the feed, followed by Jack’s voice, low and rasping: _“We entered with Bravo but were split by enemy forces—overwhelmed our location—lost contact—Charlie—”_

Hash spits across the transmission, drowning out the audio.

“What about Charlie team?” Ana calls. “76? _Jack_!”

The video remains frozen on a still of his stoic, masked face. Ana sucks in a sharp, shaking breath. Her face, when he turns to look, is tormented. Her emotions are haywire.

Thick lines appear across the screen, cutting the image to ribbons. Ana tries the frequency again, but it’s of no use. The call ends and the satellite image returns to the screen, bathing the room in silence.

Reaper is on his feet in seconds, pressing his palms flat on the table and leaning in. A cold fire blazes in gut. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Ana looks at him, then exhales lowly. “That was the first contact we’ve had with our away team in twelve hours. They were overdue for check-in by four, and we lost biometric readings in this last hour.” She points to the image on the screen. “They’re at this facility right now, fighting Talon.” A lick of anger creeps into her voice, pointed like a knife. “Fighting _you._ ”

“There’s more,” Reaper utters. “Isn’t there? Jack can take care of himself—that bastard’s too dumb to die, we both know that. What is it? Ana?”

Ana straightens, ever the warrior. “The team they lost contact with, Charlie team, it—”

He knows what she’s going to say before she says it, stomach churning at the very thought.

“Fareeha,” he says. “She was leading it, and now she’s off-grid.”

He doesn’t hesitate.

“I’ll help you, but you have to hurry.”

-

They clear out into the main room, rounding on the cluster of monitors responsible for monitoring Jack’s frequency. He stares at the information cascading down the side of the screen.

“ _No_ ,” he snaps, leaning over the terrified technician like a wraith. “That’s all wrong. Who set this up?”

“E-Excuse me?”

Reaper scowls. “Who. Set this. Up.”

The man’s eyes dart to Ana, watching the proceedings in silence by his side. She nods.

“I did,” the man says.

“You’re running unnecessary interference,” Reaper says, pointing to one of the data-points on the screen. “Kill the noise, it’ll boost the signal.” His eyes dart to Ana. “And you may just have a chance at getting through to them.”

Ana says to the technician, “Do what he says.” The man nods jerkily. To Reaper, she adds: “Please, Gabriel. Give him space to work.”

He steps back reluctantly, watching the technician’s hands fly across the keyboard, entering in another string of code. The look on his face is tense and fearful, shoulders hunched. His emotions are—

They are—

“Huh,” he breathes.

There’s something different about this man’s colors. Something… _off_. The textures are all wrong. Muted, somehow. Dull. This man’s emotions are leeched, desaturated. It reminds him of something—of _someone_ —but he can’t quite place what, or who…

“Done,” the man announces, indifferently.

Reaper’s eyes fly to the code, taking it in. It looks fine. So why does he feel so off all of a sudden? What does this remind him of? _Who_ —

The answer hits him like a ton of bricks.

He turns to Ana. “Hail them. Get them out. Now. They’ve been made.”

She frowns. “How do you—?”

“Just _do it_ , Ana!”

She peels off to make the call, hailing all frequencies to recall their agents. Reaper rounds on the technician, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him bodily out of his seat.

“You’re going to tell me exactly what you’ve done and how to undo it,” Reaper hisses, every word dripping with menace. The force of his rage is a sight to behold, smoke spewing from his parted lips.

The man looks at him, gobsmacked. “W-What?” he stammers.

Reaper’s eyes fly to the play of emotions around him. Dead. Dull. It’s a ruse.

“That won’t work on me,” he rasps. “I know your kind—I’m one of them.”

He releases his hold and the man goes sprawling to his hands and knees, whimpering.

Reaper scoffs. _Pathetic._

He turns to Ana.

“This man is Talon,” he says. “Brainwashed. Probably a sleeper agent of some kind. He’s the reason this mission went south from the beginning. I guarantee it.”

“You can’t possibly believe him!” says the man.

Ana steps forward.

“How do you know?” she asks, eyes fixed on the man but speaking to Reaper, who straightens.

“I’ve worked with them.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” Reaper says, the word a finality.

Ana nods, then motions to the guards on either side of the room. “Arrest this man.”

The agent stands there, gobsmacked. Anger bleeds into his features. It pervades the otherwise lackluster display of his emotions. _At last,_ Reaper thinks. _Something real._

“Fuck you!” he screeches. “All of you! But especially you—“ He turns on Reaper. _“Traitor!”_

He reaches for a button on the console. Reaper’s focus narrows to that single action. He steps forward from his place on the sidelines, disappears and reappears beside him.

Ana’s eyes widen, as if seeing something he cannot.

“Gabriel, _no—!_ ”

But Reaper doesn’t hear her. He snaps the man’s neck. Quick. Clean. A better death than he deserved.

The result is instantaneous. Alarms start to blare across the base, red and heady. A ten second countdown leaps lightning-fast from three, to two, to one… to zero.

The satellite image on the main viewing screen shifts. One moment, it displays the buildings, Overwatch and Talon forces alike fighting against one another. The next, the base erupts in a billowing cloud, covering absolutely everything.

A single word crosses the screen in big, block letters, blinking wildly: DETONATION.

Reaper’s blood runs cold.

The hushed silence that falls amongst the group is broken by Ana’s words.

“Get him back to his cell.”

Reaper looks at her, the tight coils of her emotions unwound, a hurricane of pain and anger and fear. The display is dazzling and horrific. It chills him to the bone.

“Ana…” he utters, pleading.

She looks away, hands shaking.

“Go.”

The guards converge on either side of him, closing in.

Reaper has no other choice. He goes.

## v.

It takes two hours for the emergency response team to arrive, an additional three to locate all six members of the missing team, and yet another hour to escort them back to base under observation.

Fareeha is alive but in critical condition, a fact Reaper learns by way of Winston, who stops by the cellblock on his way to Medical. The gorilla is bruised and battered, utterly exhausted on top of that, his usually shrewd colors lifeless and dull. Reaper makes a conscious effort not to antagonize him, for both their sake. He’s distracted by the relief welling in his chest at the all clear, relief he tries to convince himself is for _his_ benefit only, but the words ring hollow in his thoughts.

Winston leaves with the promise that someone will escort him back to his cell and remove the cuffs; the agents barely had time to place him in a regular holding cell before they were required elsewhere, the entire Watchpoint on red alert after the agent’s reveal.

That was twelve hours ago, making it a total of eighteen since he last saw Ana in the Stretch.

He isn’t sure if it’s the turmoil of the last day or the lack of soul energy catching up to him, but he feels like the bars of the cell are closing in on him where he sits, cross-legged, in the middle of the room.

He looks up at the small, square mirror on the wall, at his warped reflection in the glass. His skin has started to grey around the edges, mottled and decaying. Commander Reyes’ likeness folds a little further into the chaos of his undead form and will continue to do so the longer he goes without sufficient nourishment. The damage is largely cosmetic—it isn’t until the week-and-a-half mark that the hunger becomes unbearable, gnawing away at his stomach before that, too, is eaten through.

He’s unsure of what will happen then, as he’s never let it get that far before. Will he die like he should have all those years ago, the good doctor’s work unraveling without the energy needed to sustain it? Or will he continue to deteriorate, alive but insane, clawing at the walls until his fingernails break and his bones bend backwards in unspeakable agony?

Maybe they’ll find a way to feed him without sacrificing one of their own. Maybe they won’t, and he’ll decline further and further into madness in this place, where even at full strength he can’t escape.

Do they even remember that he’s here, waiting?

Do they even care?

He thinks of Angela, Fareeha and Jesse. Three people who showed him an inkling of kindness, despite all he had done. He thinks of Ana, of Winston and of the failed mission that sequestered him here, alone in his cell. He thinks of Jack, and how he’s seen neither hide nor hair of him since his capture, except for a grainy picture on a holo-screen, taken in the heat of battle.

It occurs to him then—in the cold, hollow darkness of his cell—that he hasn’t tried to leave past the first attempt, not even once. He rationalized it as biding his time, working slowly and carefully towards his escape, but what does he have to show for it, really?

What is he even doing here? Playing nice, playing _house_? He’s consorting with the enemy, and look where it’s got him: cold, decaying, hungry, colorless and alone.

 _What is he doing here_?

Reaper locks eyes with the would-be-man in the reflection and snarls. Disgust lingers like little black bugs against his skin, crawling up his spine, _testing._ He sees a hint of them in the glass and in the corner of his eye before they scuttle away, returning him to the curl of bitter numbness at the pit of his gut that is represented by exactly nothing in the air or in his breath.

He is becoming nothing, or perhaps that is all he has ever been. The thought enrages him so much he chokes on it, anger thick like ash on his tongue. He’s on his feet in an instant, stalking towards the mirror, not caring whether there’s anyone on the other side, taken only by who he _can_ see: himself. When he opens his mouth to breathe there it is, red and fever-hot.

He watches as the color in his eyes burn in perfect alignment to his anger, twin pits of crimson in the hollow set of his face. The rage stirs in his hands and feet, up his arms and legs, heading towards the heart of him. Pulsing. His muscles turn rigid, poised to attack, primed and ready—

He’s so _angry_.

Like a cascade of dominoes, it all comes crashing down.

-

When Reaper returns to himself, he’s standing outside the cell, his entire body trembling with barely-concealed rage. There’s blood slicked across his knuckles and the bars are mangled beyond repair.

Whatever he’s done appears to have triggered the base’s alarms, as the lights in the hallway are red and strobing, a perfect accompaniment to the anger in his bones and on his breath. He glides down the hall in a haze of smoke—a swarm of nanites in the rough approximation of a man.

He reaches the elevator, biometrics scanner primed. Reaper phases right through it, drifting up through the filtration system and into the shaft beyond, bypassing base security as easy as blinking.

He’s halfway through the base when he hears it, a radio transmission from a nearby Overwatch agent. His hearing is impeccable in this form, but still he halts, every muscle tense in his focus.

“ _Clear the halls,”_ the voice on the radio commands. _“Leave him to me.”_

He knows that voice. A man’s voice, low and gruff and abrasive.

Reaper grins with the promise of blood, made all the sweeter by the realization that it isn’t just anyone he’ll be facing when he steps out there, but the man he’s been gunning for the longest.

He makes quick work of the remainder of the hallways, catwalks and rooms. The base is in a state of disarray, the likes of which he’s never seen before—certainly not all those hours ago, when he was summoned to the central hub. There must have been a secondary attack, something other than the chaos he’s leaving here in his wake. It clicks in the back of his head that _this_ is why they’ve been gone, why he’s received no word apart from Winston’s weary report.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ hisses a voice inside of him, a peculiar mix of hunger and anger.

 _Keep going,_ it urges.

 _You’re almost there,_ it whispers.

 _Run,_ it begs.

Reaper complies.

-

Soldier: 76 stands at the exit, a silent sentinel and the last obstacle to his escape.

Reaper strides forward, not stopping; 76 stands ramrod straight, not moving. He closes the distance in a handful of quick, long steps, standing before the soldier he’d once called friend and, before either of them have a chance to question it, his hands find the catches on either side of the mask and pull it back, revealing the worn, weathered features of Jack Morrison.

There’s a pull in the tension between them, always has been and always will be. Like Icarus to the sun, it feels not unlike burning; the cellular decay and regeneration wears at the edges of this face, the face of the man Jack would have died for, once.

It hurts him, hurts them both, and makes them all the more dangerous for it.

It also trips something within Reaper. Like a switch. The rage boiling in his blood simmers, then stills.

There’s a question in those eyes, wide and cornflower-blue; a question he realizes is mirrored in his own: _What happens now?_

The rift between them yawns wide, even as Jack stands at arm’s length of him. He thinks about the past, about all the words they’ve exchanged in harsh, bitter tones, and all the words left unsaid—softer and harder by degrees, words of pain and truth and care. He wonders what life would be like if they spoke more of the latter then they had the former. Would he even be here? Would Jack?

Or would they have died in that explosion, their hands inches away from one another—Reyes watching the life drain out of Jack’s eyes; Jack watching his blood seep into the cracks in the concrete.

He shakes his head as if to rid himself of the thought. It does not dispel easily.

“Gabe,” Jack says, breathing his name like a sigh. What spills forth from his parted lips is an amalgamation of nearly every color he’s come across so far—a deep, sickly yellow for exhaustion, verdant green for concern, streaks of dark grey for melancholy, cinders of orange-red irritation and the deep, blooming crimson of anger and pain like a wound re-opened in Jack’s chest, bleeding freely into the space between them.

It’s striking, the way the color ebbs and flows. More so how Jack feels so deeply—lets his guard down so rarely—that the emotions, when they come, are a flood.

Yet it’s what lies beneath that captures his attention so thoroughly: the upsurge carrying these emotions from Jack’s parted lips in a wide band of cresting blue, like the waves off the shores of Gibraltar, like the sky at a certain time of day. It’s reflected in Jack’s eyes, which are the same, stark blue—and that watch Reaper watching him. In the darkness, they’re a bottomless cerulean, their depths unfathomable. He could get lost there, and he almost does.

“Gabriel,” repeats Jack, and this time the concern is palpable, even without the colors to guide him.

Beneath that hum of worry-green is another tendril of that inescapable blue, washing over him like the surf. It climbs into his throat and makes a home in his lungs, resonating with every breath.

The tension within him reaches a fever pitch because this—he doesn’t know what _this_ is. Every other emotion has become clear to him the moment he’s laid eyes on it or soon after, hints within the color, texture or both leading to that satisfying _click_ in his head as the missing piece slots itself into place.

That doesn’t happen here, no emotion he thinks to compare it to matches the all-mighty swell of this dark and endless blue. It isn’t the blood-on-the-wire bite of hate or the cloying dizziness of love, and even if it were, those emotions aren’t so simple. Jack has never apologized for his hate or his love, and he doesn’t see him starting now. No, _this_. This is something else.

Harder than hate, more painful than love.

And still, it doesn’t come. All he can think about, all that stirs in his thoughts, is how this—all of it—was a mistake. Perhaps the biggest one he’s ever made. He understands now, why Jack didn’t think he could face him like all the others. Why he needed to make himself scarce because this…

This is _unbearable._

It’s as much a relief as it is painful when he breaks his body down into the swarm, dissipating between Jack’s fingers as the man reaches out to grasp at him, as if his simple touch could keep him here. That unidentified emotion is a swath of blue all around Jack now, like a cocoon, made all the stronger by Reaper’s leaving, the realization that he’s gone— _again._

It’s the last thing he sees before the shadow has swallowed him whole, pulling him away from this place and the certain anguish on Jack’s scarred face. When he looks again, he is elsewhere, and for all that he considers his escape a success, it isn’t a victory.

-

Days later and a hundred miles away, Reaper coalesces in the dingy bedroom of an abandoned house with a pounding head and his heart in his throat. He takes one look at his hands—at the indigo that spews forth from them, and every modicum of his being—and he knows.

The cresting waves of ultramarine are at once too soft and too hard for him to handle. Like a barely-there graze against his skin. Like a flood.

He starts to shake, bodily, because he’s felt this emotion before, in the _time_ before—those two, regimented boxes—and it’s like the memories in one box have all come loose, tipping the balance, bringing them cascading into the _after_.

They’re all muddled now, like he is muddled.

He resists the urge to shut his eyes, beguiled by the way the air undulates with color, a million shades for a million different sensations, but all tracing back to that one, implacable hue. It’s an ocean and a storm, a hurricane in his heart that rends and fells.

It’s the most dangerous of emotions, more dangerous than hate or even love, for men kill for hate and they die for love but they’re always _sure._

All his surety, all his bravado has fallen away now, leaving him empty but for this feeling, this not-love, dwelling in his chest and in the air around him. That awful, awful blue, as beautiful as it is deadly. Like the bottom of the ocean. Like the look in Jack’s eyes, pained and haunted. He’s alone, sequestered in this small and empty place, more a prison than the cell they locked him up in, for at least then he had the illusion of a jailer, and the purpose of an escape. Now there’s nothing and nobody but himself and this insidious feeling, drilling to the marrow of his very bones:

Gabriel _grieves_.

## fin.

**Author's Note:**

> • Inspiration for this story was drawn from estelares' incredible Star Trek: AOS work _'steady as the stars in the woods'_ which you can check out [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5064016/chapters/11646490). If you're a fan of the films (and the K/S pairing) give it a read. You won't regret it.  
>   
>  • CW—Dissociation: This story is designed to have a cathartic ending. Part of the emotional punch is Gabriel referring to himself as Reaper for majority of the text; a coping mechanism to make sense of what happened to him during and after the Fall. As a result, some of his behaviors fall under the umbrella of dissociation or dissociative disorders. In particular, while he recognizes he was Gabriel Reyes and responds to the name, he doesn't think of himself as such. It's only at the end, when he comes to terms with what he's feeling, that the line between Reyes and Reaper becomes blurred and he truly starts to heal.  
>   
> • I love love love kudos, and comments pretty much make my week, so if you happen to leave either (or both)—you're a star! If anyone is interested in a sequel, let me know; I may write a coda or second piece if there's enough interest.  
>   
> Thank you for reading. ♥


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